Biography
This page uses content from the Paul Haggis biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.
Paul Edward Haggis (born March 10, 1953 in London, Ontario) is an Academy Award-winning Canadian screenwriter, film director and a director/producer of television programs working in Hollywood. He is the father of four children and resides in Santa Monica, California, with his second wife, singer-actor Deborah Rennard.
Growing up in London, Ontario
Haggis is the son of the late Mary and Ted Haggis, one-time owners of London, Ontario's former Gallery Theatre at 36 York Street, where Haggis cut his teeth in theatre production, directing and playwriting in the early 1970s. The Gallery Theatre was subsequently purchased by the London Community Players before the amateur theatrical group purchased the Palace Theatre in east London.
Haggis attended St. George's Public School, Catholic Central High School, H.B. Beal Secondary School and Fanshawe College in London.
In 1975 at age 22, Haggis left London for Los Angeles to follow his dream of writing television and movie scripts. According to his father Ted, it was "three years, two months and 10 days" before his son sold his first TV script (father Ted had been sending his son Paul $100 a week during these lean years, during which Paul landed odd jobs, including moving furniture).
Success and fame years later
Television
As a television writer/producer, he created or co-created the series Walker, Texas Ranger, Due South, Family Law, and the celebrated, if quickly cancelled EZ Streets. In 1989, he received two Emmy awards for his work on the show thirtysomething--one as a writer, and another as a producer. He will return to the realm of television in the fall of 2006, as NBC has picked up a 13-episode order for his crime drama, The Black Donnellys.
Film
In addition to directing multiple episodes of the above-mentioned television shows, Haggis has directed several feature films and written several successful screenplays. Red Hot, directorial debut, had a limited video release in 1993.
Around the turn of the century he came into his own as both a writer and director in films. As a film writer, he received an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for 2004's Million Dollar Baby, directed by Clint Eastwood, which won four Oscars, including Best Picture.
His second directorial effort performed equally as well. Crash, which he co-wrote, directed and co-produced debuted in September 2004 at the Toronto Film Festival. Lions Gate Films purchased the distribution rights for $3 million and released it internationally in May of 2005 to mostly positive reviews, with Ebert & Roeper giving it "two thumbs up" and Roger Ebert labeling it the best film of the year.
Pre-eminent Jungian scholar, London psychotherapist and author, Dr. Robert Aziz -- a cousin of artist Philip Aziz -- wrote about Crash and Aziz's Celestial City: "Although operating in very different mediums, what the artistic visions of Paul Haggis and Philip Aziz have in common is a deep concern with the interrelatedness of life, the relationship of the part to the whole. ..." For full text, see here.
The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture, best director and best original screenplay categories. He won an Academy Award for best original screenplay and the film itself received the Academy Award for best picture. Overall, he has won two Academy Awards and been nominated for four. He lost the directing prize to Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain.
Haggis' third film as a director, which he also wrote, is titled Honeymoon with Harry and was scheduled for release in 2006.
Also for director Eastwood, Haggis adapted James Bradley's book Flags of Our Fathers, about the Battle of Iwo Jima. The film was released on October 20, 2006.
Haggis was hired in August 2005 to revise the screenplay for the James Bond adventure, Casino Royale, which was also released late in 2006. The original screenplay had been written by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, based on the novel by Ian Fleming.
Activism
Haggis is also co-founder of Artists for Peace and Justice, a member of the board of directors for the Hollywood Education and Literacy Project, the Environmental Media Association, the President's Council of the Defenders of Wildlife and the advisory board of the Centre for the Advancement of Non-Violence.
More recently, Haggis has made a cameo appearance as himself on the HBO series, Entourage as the director of the fictitious film "Medellín". The film, which is stated to be based on the life of Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar, sparks the interest of main character Vincent Chase.
Honors
Apart from the Oscar's for Crash, in 2001, the Writers' Guild of America awarded Haggis the Valentine Davies Award for "bringing honor and dignity to writers everywhere." Other awards include, six Geminis, the Humanitas Prize and the TV Critics Association Award.
Paul Haggis Day
The City of London, Ontario, declared September 11, 2006, Paul Haggis Day in London, with Haggis, his father, Ted and Mayor Anne-Marie DeCicco-Best touring three of the schools that Paul Haggis had attended growing up in London in the 1960s and 1970s -- Fanshawe College, Catholic Central High School and H.B. Beal Secondary School.
Just prior to Haggis's arrival in London, Beal students participated in a photography contest featuring historic Blackfriars Bridge in London (Haggis was born on Blackfriars Street in London in 1953, near the bridge). Haggis will select the best photograph of the bridge, award the student photographer $2,500 and also use the photograph on his Blackfriars Bridge Productions letterhead.
At Fanshawe College, it was announced that two annual $5,000 scholarships would be established by Fanshawe and the local Catholic and public school boards in Haggis's name and that Haggis would be given an honorary Fanshawe diploma in November of 2007 (Haggis, a self-described abysmal student, never graduated from any of the secondary or post-secondary schools that he attended). The day wrapped up in the afternoon at London city hall's council chambers, before a packed public gallery, with the City announcing that a future park in southwest London would be named after Haggis.
Additionally, the City presented Haggis with an original painting completed by London artist Philip Aziz in 1974, called, Celestial City.
External links
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